Structure

A photo by Mother called “Siblings”: my little sister, me & my big brother. And no, nobody had informed me of the strict dress code [“Let’s all wear black t-shirts with funny prints!”] that Saturday evening…

Yesterday I passed the exam in “History and Philosophy of Science” with the grade ‘excellent’. I have studied in Russia for five and a half years now and the only grade I have ever received is ‘excellent’ so yesterday’s outcome should not be much of a surprise to anyone; least of all to me. And now I only have three grades left to receive in Russia. In about a month [in late February/early March] I will have to take the ‘state final exam in Russian literature’. After this I will receive a grade from my academic guidance counselor for something called ‘scholarly research on required subject’ which when translated into normal people’s words means he’ll grade me according to how well I’ll be writing on my Master’s dissertation. I’m pretty sure already that he’ll give me ‘excellent’ no matter what I do. In the very end – at the beginning of June – I will be graded in Russian for the last time when defending my Master’s dissertation. None of this really matters though – for the obvious reason that I’ve already been accepted to Berkeley. But still I’d like to finish university in Russia with straight ‘excellents’. Call it vanity, call it whatever you want really but to me it is important.

A few weeks back I wrote a rather brave e-mail to my boss [in case you didn’t know I’ve been blogging professionally since November 2007 for this blog] asking for increase in payment. On one hand I know I do not exactly need more money [I have yet to find the time to spend the money I’m making right now], but on the other hand I’ve been working for them during more than two years now for the same amount of money and succeeded in raising the number of readers by feed from about 900 up to around 1500. In other words, I felt that it was time for me to put my foot down and state my demands. Little did I know the kind of plans the company I work for had for this blog… Today I finally got it in writing from my boss – I will get more money, but with the money comes a new position: “blog owner/manager/editor”. And as a part of this new position I will have what is known as a “blog contributor” working under me. I have never been the boss of anyone before in my life… At first I wanted to scream with fear and run away and hide and tell them to take all of these new responsibilities away from me as soon as possible. Then I calmed myself down and thought about the prospects of this suggestion for a while. After thinking things through I realized that this might actually be a good thing, for it will finally force me to become more structured professionally. Up until now I’ve been not very structured at all; though my contract specifically states that I have to write ten post a month I consider it a good month if I get around to writing five… Working in a team and having someone else not only to ‘order around’ but also to keep me in check and make sure I’m doing what I’m paid for [the past year or so I’ve been suspecting that the only reason for as why they haven’t fired me is because I have this thing called ‘personal charm’ which attracts readers more than regularity ever could]. Instead of being scared I have decided to embrace this opportunity. After all, in six months I’ll turn twenty-five and if that’s not a good age for growing up and taking responsibility professionally then I don’t know when it should be done!

Structure, structure, structure – I need more structure in my life! During the past week I have had a revelation in regard to what the next semester will demand from me: a structuring of my time in accordance with what I need to get done. Since I will not have any actual ‘classes’ this semester, except for teaching my three groups of Swedish in the evenings on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, how I decide to spend my time solely dependes on me. Like everyone else when there’s no real demand for you to be at a certain place at a certain time on a regular basis, I have a tendency to devote myself to utter nonsense for hours and stay up until five in the morning and get out of bed when other people are eating lunch… This must – naturally – come to an end now. First of all I must get more structured in planning my Swedish lessons. Usually I prepare my lectures on the same day that I have to give them and this highly counterproductive since it means that I spend three days of the week only with Swedish and nothing else [because on those days before actually starting to prepare my lessons I have a strong tendency to devote myself to the above-mentioned nonsense]. Thus only ONE day a week should go to preparing Swedish lessons – preferably Wednesdays. I also have to learn how to do all of my blogging for the upcoming week during ONE day – preferably Sundays. On Saturdays I must make a rule of always cleaning up the place where I live [usually this is the only real structured part of my life – I never fail to clean up on this day since I do take great pleasure in this process]. On Thursdays and Fridays I must be at the university and conduct research for my Master’s dissertation – and not only show up a couple of hours before my classes to simply dedicate myself to drinking coffee and gossiping with professors at various faculties. This will leave me with two whole days – Mondays and Tuesdays – for translating, writing academic articles, keeping in touch with friends around the globe by way of letters the size of the Bible [Old AND New Testament] and enjoying the occasional glass of red wine in good company.

The more I think about it, the more I come to understand that leaving Facebook was the best decision I ever made.

And as it turns out, the day has arrived when even I decide to grow up :)